


Fall Into My Dreams Again

by silence_since_silence



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Bondage, Canon Era, Internal Monologue, Leather, M/M, Masturbation, consent unknown, masturbation fantasy come to life, no touching happens, sleep to awake
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-30
Updated: 2014-10-30
Packaged: 2018-02-23 07:02:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2538635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silence_since_silence/pseuds/silence_since_silence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin wakes up in an unusual place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fall Into My Dreams Again

**Author's Note:**

> Title from _The Taming of the Shrew_ by William Shakespeare. This takes place sometime in season four, probably earlier rather than later but certainly after episode three.

Merlin knows he is still asleep because of the way he can’t smell anything. Reality is rarely ever so odorless, and Merlin’s early morning reality always includes the smell of every medicine Gaius left cooking the night before.

After another moment, he comes to the realization that he is being pressed lightly into the mattress beneath him. Someone must have put a heavy winter blanket over him while he slept. His muscles are relaxed and he dreads moving them to get out of this rare state of comfort. He mourns a few minutes longer and pretends to be still asleep and dreaming. He grasps with all his might at the shredded, wispy edges of the dream he just left and tries to block out the knowledge that the backs of his eyelids are red instead of black or invisible. It isn’t working.

He spares one last, immeasurable moment for a pipe dream of a lazier life that will never come to be. He sighs as he rolls to his right to get up, dressed, and down to the kitchens for Arthur’s breakfast, but he finds he can’t roll very far. Finally, _finally_ he opens his eyes to see just how his legs and arms have become so very tangled in his bed sheets. Instead of what he expects, he finds himself in an unfamiliar guest room of the castle with his legs and arms bound together and the bindings tied to the bed. It’s no wonder he was so comfortable: this is one of the rooms reserved for visiting nobility and royalty! What in the name of the gods is he doing in here?! It’s not the straps or the room that bring about the rush of adrenaline from panic and the heightened awareness of his surroundings; it’s the fact that he went to sleep in his own bed last night and whatever brought him to _this_ one _didn’t wake him_. He cranes his head around but doesn’t see anyone else in the room with him. The door to the hallway has been left open about half a foot by someone. Maybe whoever put him here will be back soon, or maybe there is a guard outside that door. He starts to try to free himself from his bonds without using magic, just in case.

His wrists rub against the leather straps holding them in place near his hips. His left wrist slips a little more easily in the strap, but does not slide out like he wishes it would. He keeps flipping his hands over and over and back and forth in their bindings to try to loosen them. It would probably be easier somehow if he could see what he was doing, but the heavy, large, and elaborate bedcovers on top of him make that extremely difficult. He can’t see through solid objects, after all. He lifts his head anyway to look down the bed as he struggles, and that’s when he first feels something else. One tug around his neck. One more binding, light and snug enough in its place around his neck that he hasn’t felt it until now. One more part of him held down.

What is this? If he had been arrested, he would be tied up in the dungeons. (And he would have woken up for that.) If he’d been kidnapped, he wouldn’t be in this random room in one of Camelot’s castle’s many and confusing wings. (And he would have woken up for _that_.) If the city and castle had been seized and he somehow hadn’t been killed where he slept, he would _not_ have been worth all the effort of tying to a bed in a cushy guest room somewhere likely a rather far walk away from the bedroom he would have been found in. (And the warning bells, the screams, and the clang of clashing swords _absolutely_ would have woken him for that!) Unless…. Unless Morgana finally discovered his secret and decided to toy with her food before eating it.

At this thought, Merlin redoubles his efforts. He struggles forcefully against his bonds to try to break them. His body thrashes around on the bed as he tries to pull a knot loose somewhere. Anywhere.  He pants from the effort and the difficult angles he tries to force himself to make. He makes so much noise rustling the bed sheets and grunting through his movements that he is sure any ill-meaning guard stationed outside the cracked-open door would have heard him and come inside either to subdue him or to leer maliciously at him (read: revel in his fate-to-come) by now. He quits struggling and closes his eyes. He almost says the spell to break the bonds when he hears it: a low gasp from somewhere inside the room. His eyes open so fast that he has to blink against the light he only just blocked out. His head turns too instinctively for him to remember to adjust for the restraint at his neck, and he gets bounced backwards by the strap. When he can angle his head properly again, he sees what he did not see before: there is a person sitting in shadow on a chair behind a latticework screen in the corner.

He knows that figure well. It’s Arthur.

Merlin is still full of fearful energy from waking up tied-up, alone, and possibly in danger in such an unlikely place and is still out of breath from his exertions on the bed. His voice comes out rough and airy when he tentatively asks, “Arthur?”

In response, Merlin hears something halfway between a moan and a groan.

When, after a handful of (Merlin’s and Arthur’s slowing) breaths, Arthur comes over to untie Merlin, he avoids Merlin’s incredulous stare. Arthur’s hands and trousers are messy with his own come.

**Author's Note:**

> It was all an elaborate masturbation fantasy executed by the young king! Arthur likes it when Merlin struggles. Merlin likes it when he knows what the heck is going on and when he wakes up in his own bed and is not tied up.
> 
> I know it may sound like Merlin was drugged to get him to his new location, but all I mean by his state of thorough relaxation is that he’s had a good sleep. Arthur did not drug him. How Merlin didn’t wake is still a mystery. Perhaps he subconsciously felt safe during the move. Perhaps Arthur’s stealthy hunter training kicked in so that he was very quiet and walked smoothly. Honestly, I haven’t decided yet.
> 
> If it helps you to know this: I wrote this when I was trying to decide whether or not to do pthon.
> 
> Con crit is welcome as long as it’s not about the plot (if you would consider this to have a plot).


End file.
